Fitness Friday || Heights Half Marathon (Race Recap)

Welcome to Fitness Friday #51

Celebrate fitness. Celebrate good health. Celebrate friends. Celebrate your passion.

Before I get to the recap I have a favor to ask of all Fitness Friday visitors and participants! I’m in the process of trying a few things to spread the word about Fitness Friday. The more the merrier right? Would you mind sharing the Fitness Friday link-up on at least one other social media? Tweet it, pin it or post it on Facebook. Any and everywhere! Thank you.

Half Marathon #6
June 23, 2012
Dayton, OH

The best way to describe this race is my experience with the sin of knowing better. Dean Karnazes explains it perfectly in his book, 50/50.

Every runner is familiar with the sin of knowing better– of stubbornly pushing ahead despite warnings from more sensible parts of our minds. The desire to keep running until the task is completed or the goal achieved is so great that it overrides our better knowledge and our self-protective faculties.

In my case I wanted the task complete and I wanted to accomplish my goal pace. My sins of knowing better were 1. underestimating the heat and 2. waiting until I was thirsty to start using the water stops. As a result of both of these I ran the first half wonderfully and stayed right on track with the goal pace I had in mind. After the halfway point I started feeling like my body wasn’t cooling. Uh oh. I’m going to be sick. For the first time in all the years I’ve been running I had to stop because I was sure I was going to be sick. The nausea got better and I was able to get back into the race, but I was unable to get back to the pace of the first 7 or so miles. From that point on I focused on finishing and rethinking every step from the starting line. My mistakes and what I have learned from them. It took me 2 days to recover and feel back to normal again.

Imagine my surprise when I found out later in the day that I won 3rd place in my division! I was sure there must have been a mistake. When I emailed the race conact they confirmed that yes, in fact, I had won third place and they would mail my medal.

I’m at the half way point of running 12 half marathons in 2012. Cool!

Right after this shot was the second time I stopped because I was pretty sure I was going to be sick. The race volunteer looked worried.

Stats

Excuse the cutoff stats image. As we were driving home I realized I the timer was still going. Guess I was too busy trying not to get sick to stop my watch. For some crazy reason that just made me laugh

Final Finish Time
2:16:13

And you know what? The good, the bad and the ugly…I seriously love running

Have you ever committed a “sin of knowing better”? Have you ever gotten sick while running?

Tagged: 2012 goals, 2012 Race Recaps, Fitness Friday blog hop, goals, half marathon, running, Twelve In Twenty Twelve